ZK-powered Bitcoin Layer 2 Citrea launches mainnet
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The Founders Fund and Galaxy-backed Bitcoin Layer 2 Citrea is launching its mainnet and native ctUSD stablecoin.
According to an announcement on Tuesday, the zero-knowledge-powered rollup is built to support “two core product categories,” including BTC-backed lending and structured products.
“By bringing Bitcoin-secured financial applications on-chain, the Citrea mainnet enables capital to be deployed, managed, and settled directly within Bitcoin-native markets,” said Orkun Kilic, co-founder and CEO of Chainway Labs, the company building Citrea. “Native settlement through ctUSD provides the bridge to fiat systems, supporting use cases such as BTC-backed lending and institutional credit.”
On the lending front, Citrea is developing lending infrastructure with leading DeFi provider Morpho and Edge Capital’s UltraYield. It has also tapped Keyrock to build BTC-based structured products, in addition to 30-odd other “Bitcoin-native applications,” the team said in a statement.
“Citrea enables deeper, more native engagement with BTC by bringing capital markets, stablecoin liquidity, and application infrastructure directly onto Bitcoin,” Galaxy General Partner Will Nuelle said. “By making Bitcoin a more active financial asset, Citrea strengthens its role within global financial systems and expands the ways institutions and users can securely build on top of the network.”
Chainway raised a $14 million Series A funding round in 2024, led by Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund with participation from Maven11, Mirana, dao5, Erik Voorhees, Balaji Srinivasan, Nikil Viswanathan, Mert Mumtaz, Jameson Lopp, and other prominent investors.
How Citrea works
Citrea batches thousands of transactions off-chain, processes them using a zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine (zkEVM), and generates a zero-knowledge proof that is inscribed on the Bitcoin base layer. With this EVM architecture, developers can also code the types of smart contracts supported by Ethereum.
Unlike many other Bitcoin L2s that rely on external mechanisms or multi-sigs, Citrea uses Bitcoin directly for settlement and data availability, ensuring transaction data is accessible onchain, meaning Citrea’s state can be recreated with a full Bitcoin node.
The network’s Clementine bridge to Bitcoin, launched in 2025 using the Bitcoin Virtual Machine (BitVM), is a way to bring advanced functionality to Bitcoin without requiring a hardfork.
Citrea’s ctUSD is issued by MoonPay and powered by M0’s stablecoin infrastructure. The token will be fully backed by short-term US Treasury bills and cash to comply with GENIUS Act requirements.
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